


my healing needed more than time

by lostin_space



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Communication, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Finale, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-02 13:41:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20276812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostin_space/pseuds/lostin_space
Summary: alex decides they needs to talk about that night in the shed





	my healing needed more than time

**Author's Note:**

> i'm slowly putting all my fics onto ao3, this is apart of that! not sure when this was written, but probably right after the finale. or maybe not. idk

“Guerin,” Alex announced as he stepped out of his truck at the junkyard.**  
**

Michael looked up from the fire pit and managed a small smile. He looked tired. After all the shit with Noah and Michael finding out there wasn’t really a planet to go back to, he’d been spacey. He hadn’t even been going to the bar to drink, he’d just been holing himself up. Everyone seemed vaguely confused by it, but Alex was the one blessed with his late-night phone calls. Michael felt lost.   
  
And Alex was dead set on giving him somewhere to go.  
  
“Hey, Alex,” Michael said softly. He was curled up on one of the lawn chairs with a blanket draped around him. His eyes were trained on the fire pit in front of him and Alex couldn’t help but think he looked like a child. Alex sat in the chair beside him.  
  
“I’ve been thinking. I’m sort of tired of this whole, ‘just friends’ thing. We know each other and I… would really like taking it a bit further if you want to.” Alex said. That was the easy part. It was made easier by how down Michael was. Michael’s eyes focused on Alex.

“Yeah?” he whispered, sitting up a bit straighter. Alex smiled and resisted the urge to touch him. He wanted so badly to comfort him from the inevitable chaos in his head, but he wasn’t done talking.

“Yeah. But first, we need to talk about something.” Alex said softly. Michael nodded, his curls flopping as he scrambled to sit up. It was an odd picture. If Alex didn’t know better, he would’ve thought he was sitting across from teenage Michael. He almost didn’t want to bring up what he knew he had to. “That night… in the shed.”

And adult Michael was back.

“Alex, I‒”

“No, we need to talk about this. That’s where it started. That’s what… brought us together, but created this huge divide between us. We need to talk about it.” Alex insisted. Michael closed his eyes for a moment and Alex felt his body gravitate toward him a little. Maybe this was a bad time. Maybe Michael needed some more time. But, then again, ten years is a long time.

“Okay. Talk.” Michael decided, adjusting to sit up and face Alex completely. Alex took a deep breath, eying him carefully. He looked so fucking tired. But Alex had hope and if Michael was listening that meant he had some drive left in him too.

“Okay… So I just wanna start with saying I’m sorry about that night.” Alex began. Michael rolled his eyes, leaning back in the chair.

“Alex, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Yeah, I know, but I’m always going to feel like it was. I mean, I took you there. I told you it was safe and it wasn’t.”

“You didn’t know.”

“I should’ve though! We could’ve hooked up anywhere else, we could’ve gotten in your truck and went to the fucking desert, but instead, I took you to a place fifty feet away from my homophobic dad as if I didn’t know what the hell I was risking.” Alex vented. Michael furrowed his eyebrows, eying Alex carefully. Alex shifted under his gaze, trying hard to figure out what Michael was thinking. He usually never had to think about that. Michael was brutally honest, at least when it came to him. The idea of Michael not just filtering through this conversation was unexpected.

“Okay. If you knew what you were risking… Why _did_ you take me there?” Michael asked calmly. Alex gulped, roughly being thrown back into his seventeen-year-old state of mind. That wasn’t nearly as pleasant as seeing Michael look that way.

“I-I don’t know. That’s just where I would bring guys if they wanted to hook up. They’d always be too scared to do it at their place because everyone was in the closet. _You _were in the closet.” Alex tried to explain, fumbling over an explanation that he struggled to find. Michael gave that cocky little smirk, making Alex feel small.

“I wasn’t in the closet. I didn’t _know_. And when I realized that’s what I felt towards you, I didn’t care. You gave me a place here, you gave me _hope_.” Michael admitted and Alex fell back in the chair as if he’d been hit in the chest. In a way, he had been. “But I get it, Alex, that was your safe space. When your dad came in that night, it was him invading your space. It was just the night that it was me‒it could’ve been anyone else.”

“But it wasn’t anyone else! It was you!” Alex argued, “Anyone else, I don’t think he would’ve even touched. I would’ve been embarrassed and anyone else would’ve bolted. But I… I was in love with you already. Yeah, maybe it was just with the way you made me feel, it wasn’t what it turned into, but I was seventeen and it was the kind of love you fucking tell your friends and write diaries about. And when you told me you liked me, that you _really _liked me, I couldn’t even fucking control myself. You were _everything_, Michael, and he knew that. He knew it the moment you didn’t run.”

“I don’t run. Not when it comes to you.” Michael admitted, licking his lips. Alex shook his head, forcing himself to look at the ground. “Listen, Alex, maybe he wouldn’t have touched anyone else, but so what? You just said it yourself, _I_ didn’t run. I could’ve or I could’ve just watched when he put his hands on you, but I was in love with you too, Alex. I haven’t stopped loving you in that stupid seventeen-year-old way. I mean, it’s different now. I know you better, it feels… It’s an old love you make feel new whenever you give me a chance. That night did bring us together. It told me I was willing to fucking fight for you and I haven’t stopped.”

Alex felt his body deflate in the chair even more as tears clouded his eyes. His heart was thudded so loud in his chest he was scared it was going to burst out. Maybe he should’ve gotten a little drunk before this conversation. He knew Michael and he knew he was going to say some heart-stopping, pants-dropping shit.

“Why do you always have to word stuff like that?” Alex asked, his voice cracking in a way he wished he hadn’t. Michael reached out and placed his hand on Alex’s knee. His eyes zeroed in on it before deciding to place his hand over Michael’s. “I didn’t protect you.”

“And I didn’t protect you. I should’ve begged you to stay instead of just letting your dad force you to go to war. I just… I didn’t want to be the one holding you back.” Michael responded, turning over his hand and lacing it in Alex’s. He felt a smile pulling at his lips. They’ve never really held hands before.

“Okay, then… It’s my turn. Stay here. Don’t go off to some planet, don’t leave. As much as I know you feel alone, you’re not. Isobel, Max, Liz, Maria, they all want you here. I _need _you here. And I don’t think I’m holding you back, I think I’m convincing you not to do anything stupid.” Alex asked softly, leaning forward. Michael closed the space, their foreheads meeting.

Alex felt like a weight had been lifted as he stared at Michael. He understood what he meant by their love being something that seemed to constantly renew. It was exhausting. Every time he thought it was best to pull away, there Michael was, looking hot as ever and speaking words that sounded like he read them from a romance novel. But they weren’t, they were his and they were honest and they were for Alex. For a decade, Alex hadn’t known how to compete. He didn’t have words of romance to give, he couldn’t seem to wax poetic about his undying love, he just knew it was there and had to hope Michael understood when he touched him.

Today was only a little different.

“I want to be with you, Michael Guerin. I’m here, I’m willing, and I’m not going anywhere. I want to try again. I want to take you on dates and hold your hand and give you goodnight kisses, fuck, good morning kisses. I want to have breakfast with you and make our friends think we’re so cute it’s disgusting. I don’t want just the, the mind-blowing sex‒I want everything else. Please, stay here, and I will do my best to give you everything.” Alex promised, moving his hands to cup Michael’s face. He was smiling so bright it was borderline blinding. Alex would kill to keep that look on his face.

“Well, damn, private, sure know how to make a guy swoon.” Michael teased, squeezing Alex’s knee. Alex matched his smile, rolling his eyes before nudging his nose against Michael’s. “Alright, I’ll stay and we’ll start over. On one condition though.”

“Anything.” Alex agreed, shifting closer. He was beginning to wish they weren’t in lawn chairs. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing to sit on the edge of those and it put a whole lot of unneeded weight on his prosthetic. But he was fine sitting there if it meant staring at that smile on Michael’s face.

“I get to call you my boyfriend.” Michael’s hand gripped the lapels of Alex’s jacket. Alex grabbed Michael’s shirt, leading him as they both stood to their feet. Their breath melded, the wind hitting them as if trying to push them towards the airstream. It was surreal, being so close to Michael again. This time was more permanent. This was real.

They were going to make this work.

“Absolutely.”

**Author's Note:**

> also on my tumblr: spaceskam
> 
> let me know if there are any tags that I should add!


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